November 23, 2023
As they say, I received this ARC for an honest review from Library Thing. And thank you. I didn't feel like I was reading a novel so much as having one described to me. This disconnect stems largely from the clunky translation. Amusingly there is a point in the book where the main character says he only speaks Russian and if he had to explain anything in English he'd be in trouble. Profanity is thrown in at random points seemingly as proof that the translation isn't in trouble. It all hurt my ears. The time travel concept was interesting -- a unique take on the actual travel technique -- and I did appreciate the author mixing religion and Marxism into a far flung dystopian stew but the set up before time travel was too long for such a short work. And it is unpleasant. When he finally does arrive in the future he asks all the wrong questions for a person in his position -- he is asking questions to move the story not questions that come from who he is or reveal how he feels (he should be scared but instead seems annoyed). The final crushing blow was a character in the future world called Junior. He is an uneducated child member of a slave race that seems to know everything and can express complicated sociopolitical concepts like he just rolled out of a community college. His full name should be Junior Exposition. The long set up before the time travel begged for more of a wrap up upon his return than there is. The novel just kinda drifts to a stop ( )

This was the first Andrew Orange book I have read and I was impressed by the suspenseful plot. I'm looking forward to reading more of his (her? Andrew Orange is a pen name) work. ( )

I received a free copy of this book through library things early reviewers program. The Interchange has an interesting premise, but it is not well executed. The story was translated from Russian, but the author knows the reader is unfamiliar with this context, and endnotes with explanatory information are prevalent. Possibly readers from Russia would be more engaged with the content, but it doesn't resonate with me. If you speak Russian, and are familiar with Russian culture, maybe you will have a better experience reading it in the original language. Russia in this novel is a dystopia where even school teachers lack information about the topics they are teaching - and they're only teaching boring subjects. (The main character himself states that his education will be of no value).

The book is well written in that it lacks the grammatical and typographical errors common in free books, but the main character, Tim, is not compelling. He is also inconsistent. He had a Jewish father, which makes him Jewish by Nazi standards (and apparently by the standards of the author) but not by Jewish law. He also explodes at a classmate, "People like you killed Christ," which is not a Jewish sentiment. If Tim is Jew, he shouldn't care about Jesus, he shouldn't call Jesus the messiah (christos is just the Greek word for messiah), and his religious convictions should be based on Judaism rather than on Christianity. If Tim is a Christian, then I don't care that his father happened to be Jewish since that doesn't affect the plot of the story. Russia in this novel is run by a Nazi party, but this doesn't contribute to the plot if the main character is not believably Jewish and if the antisemitic ideas only register to a Russian audience. On the plus side, the antisemitism was so unconvincing and/or culturally specific to Russia that as an American Jew, I was not affected by it.

Although the book is allegedly a science fiction story in which Tim swaps bodies with a man from the future, one fourth of the way through the book, Tim is still a poor college student living in a Nazi/Communist Russia focused more on propaganda than on actual education. Tim's status as a virgin is also stressed several times, for no apparent reason. As a result, Part I of the novel (the first 38%) is extremely boring. You can skip all of it without missing any critical, or interesting, information.

In Part II, Tim finally gets to the future. It is 3017 CE, and Hautama is emperor of a world. Tim is in his body, which was only possible because they have the same soul. (Normally, people are reincarnated into clones; but there are also lots of clones who serve as slaves, which is confusing. Why would you want your new body to be worn out by manual labor?) Tim argues with the emperor's second (who is actually in charge, despite Hautama's promises to Tim before the body swap) about philosophy, which is a combination of Buddhism and communist atheism, but their arguments are not compelling. ( )

First things first, this is a Russian sci-fi story translated into English by Andrew Orange. I speak some Russian and am somewhat familiar with Russian stuff, but readers who are not might be surprised by the very blunt anti-Semitism, profanity, and some of the cultural references. Most of these are clarified with footnotes, though I note that the "put you on a bottle" line was not - this otherwise strange-sounding statement is probably a reference to incidents of Russian police using alcohol bottles on prisoners for sadistic punishment.

The story itself muses on truth versus fiction, whether or not truth is actually meaningful, loneliness, time travel, higher powers or a lack thereof, a ticking clock, an allegory of haves versus have nots, empathy, the soul, a few meta moments, and a few pointed comments on the Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine. It's basically a novella and takes a little while to get going, but it picks up well - the future society is an interesting mix of a bunch of different ideas and refers to classic sci-fi like Logan's Run.

Very Russian stuff, all things considered. ( )

This is an interesting take on time travel through a consensual body exchange. Although it seemed a bit slow to get started, the pace picked up about a third of the way through. Overall plot line was intriguing and entertaining. There were a few twists, and a very satisfactory and well conceived ending. ( )